Jeff Eller is no longer forced to squeeze out those last few
minutes of work at the office before rushing to the airport.
That's because he carries his office with him-or at least as
much of it as he needs. That usually means his Apple PowerBook,
which is equipped with an Apple AirPort Wireless Fidelity (Wi-Fi)
network adaptor that can be used to log on to the wireless network
transceivers at half a dozen of the nation's busiest
airports.

"It's slicker than all get out," says Eller,
managing director of Public Strategies Inc., a public affairs
consulting firm in Austin, Texas. "Now I can go to the airport
two hours in advance, avoid traffic and still have the bandwidth
I'm accustomed to."

Eller, who travels often, takes advantage of the growing number
of Wi-Fi connections at airports and hotels nationwide, especially
at his hometown's Bergstrom Airport. He arrives early, sets up
in a lounge or restaurant, and starts whittling down the 250 or so
e-mails he gets daily. Virtual meetings with clients via instant
messaging sometimes continue right up to the departure gate.

Meanwhile, back at the office, around 20 other Public Strategies
employees are using AirPort-enabled PowerBooks at their desks or in
conference rooms to hook up to the company's Ethernet backbone.
They are especially useful for note-taking and downloading research
and slide presentations from the company's server during client
meetings.

Wi-Fi-or 802.11b-is just now starting to penetrate the
workplace. But it promises to bring us our product databases and
price lists, maps, video-conferences, training clips, CEO pep talks
and a lot more-anywhere, any time. Data transfer speeds top out at
a respectable 11Mbps at the moment but should reach 54Mbps early
next year.

Some of the biggest names in computing are making
multimillion-dollar bets on the technology. Most wireless adaptors
are sold through the system integrators and resellers of
traditional networking companies-3Com, Cisco, etc. But large
portable PC sellers like Compaq, Gateway and IBM also have been
quick to seize the technology-none more so than Toshiba Computer
Systems Group (CSG). Half Toshiba's recently introduced
portables have Wi-Fi built-in, and the rest can access it through a
PC Card. Toshiba is also investing heavily in installation and
support services for companies of all sizes.

"I am betting big on Wi-Fi," asserts Steve Andler,
vice president of marketing for Toshiba CSG. "By the end of
the year, I think two-thirds of all I sell will have Wi-Fi in it.
This isn't the future; this is now."

Bandwith And Connectivity

As a busy entrepreneur, you need both bandwidth and seamless
connectivity everywhere you work. You have to stay in touch with
team members and clients, and you must have the bandwidth to move
big data files back and forth. Wi-Fi's ability to deliver both
these things makes it an obvious choice.

Networks
EverywhereHere are some of the major
differences and similarities
among popular wireless networks:

Standard

Max
Range (Feet)

Speed (MBPS)

Band (GHZ)

IEEE 802.11a

300

54

5

IEEE 802.11b

300

11

2.4

IEEE 802.11

300

2

2.4

HomeRF

160

1.6

2.4

OpenAir

160

1.6

2.4

Of course, people are just beginning to appreciate this mighty
wielder of bandwidth and connectivity. Wi-Fi network adaptors
didn't start shipping in any appreciable quantity until late
1999. A year later, sales had picked up to 2.6 million nodes
annually, says research firm Cahners In-Stat Group. That figure
should grow to 8 million per year by 2002-still a far cry from the
large installed base (as well as annual unit shipments) of
Ethernet, Fast Ethernet and wired NICs, says In-Stat industry
analyst Gemma Paulo.

At 11Mbps, 802.11b is faster than the many 1Mbps peer-to-peer
wired networks in place and pretty comparable to wired Ethernet
client/server installations, most of which still move data around
at the old 10Mbps. Except for the most esoteric applications,
Public Strategies employees don't notice any appreciable
differences between the company's wired Ethernet and Wi-Fi
networks, reports Eller.

Of course, as with all networks, maximum bandwidth is an ideal.
Traffic loads, radio interference and other types of network
friction can slow down Wi-Fi transfer rates. They should get a
boost to 54Mbps by the end of this year-that's when we should
start to see products using the new 802.11a version of the
protocol, which uses a different radio band than that used by the
2.4GHz Spread Spectrum Wi-Fi 802.11b. The 2.4GHz band is the same
frequency used by other wireless LAN protocols like Home Radio
Frequency and cordless phones. It's also the same band that the
upcoming deluge of Bluetooth short-range wireless products will use
later this year.

Wired Vs. Wireless

A new technology like Wi-Fi has to cost more than the wired
Ethernet, right? That depends on how you do the accounting, says
Eller.

At $100 to $200 per PC and $500 to $1,000 per access point, the
cost of wireless hardware is typically two to four times the cost
of wired network components. But the higher cost of Wi-Fi hardware
is offset by its ease of installation and lower main-tenance costs.
And you can look forward to steep Wi-Fi adaptor price decreases of
up to one-third in the following months, predicts Bradley Morse,
vice president of marketing for D-Link, an Irvine, California,
manufacturer of networking products.

Most desktop Wi-Fi adaptors require the opening of the PC and
the use of a PCI slot. But D-Link has come out with a USB adaptor,
the D-Link DWL-120, which you can find for $159 (street), further
lowering IT support costs. Likewise, portable users need only slide
in a $100 (street) Wi-Fi PC Card in a Type II slot.

But counting costs is shortsighted, says Eller, who's more
interested in the productivity benefits. "Nobody did a
cost-benefit analysis on Wi-Fi," he reports. "It worked,
it was cool, it was useful, and we bought it."

Wireless networks have been around for years but have never
really caught on. Part of the problem was their sub-2Mbps transfer
speeds. More than that, says Paulo, there has never been the kind
of marketing push and distribution infrastructures-not to mention
technical support-that are behind Wi-Fi today. "People want to
have some kind of assurance that all this stuff will work
together," explains Paulo.

It all suggests that work is not just about the office
anymore-or even the home office. Eller believes he works best out
on the deck in his backyard. It's the only place his wife will
let him smoke a cigar while he reads his e-mail.